Alumni Composition Competition 2020 winner announced

Louise Chartron (BMus Music 2019) has been selected as the winner of the Alumni Composition Competition 2020.

Now in its third year, the competition invites all alumni and graduates of the School of Music to submit an original composition for performance by one of the School’s ensembles. This year, compositions were invited for the Chamber Orchestra ensemble.

The winning piece, The Penrose Steps, will be performed by Cardiff University Chamber Orchestra in spring 2021, with rehearsals due to begin later this month.

Of the piece, Louise said: “The Penrose Steps illustrates the cycle of depression and euphoria to which many of us are subjected, in a way that highlights the ordinarily trivialised significance of those moments of clarity and harmony we experience amongst the seemingly endless darkness and turbulence.”

Louise is currently working on another larger-scale piece for orchestra, choir and various solo instruments with hopes of turning it into a concerto for orchestra.

The judging panel said: “'We were very pleased to receive some excellent submissions from our alumni this year. However, Louise's piece impressed us most. It displays some outstanding features: it is very well written for the orchestra, providing plenty of challenges for the brass, wind and percussion sections; it also demonstrates a solid compositional technique, with a fine sense of contrapuntal flow and formal and harmonic direction.”